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Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Nintendo's first foray into a paid online gaming service received two major shake-ups on Thursday: a delay and a content upgrade.

In good news, that means Nintendo won't charge for online Switch gaming for at least a few more months. (The paid service will eventually be required to access newer games' online multiplayer modes, though Nintendo still hasn't clarified whether older, pre-service games will be affected.) In bad news, the original plan was for the service to launch as a fully working free trial by this summer, including ties to the Nintendo Switch Online smart device app. Now, Nintendo says the only thing to expect by this summer is a "limited" version of that app. Nintendo did not clarify which of the app's advertised features (which include online matchmaking, voice chat with friends, and game-invite management) will make it into the limited version.

The much better news comes from a tweak to one of Nintendo Switch Online's advertised features: access to classic Nintendo games, complete with online multiplayer upgrades. Those games are still coming to paying subscribers, but originally, Nintendo said players would only get to access one classic game per month this way—and that the access would expire at month's end, unless Nintendo fans paid up to buy the game in question. Now, Nintendo is making this subscription feature a lot simpler: so long as you subscribe, you get access to the service's entire slew of classic, online-boosted games in perpetuity. (Cancel your subscription, on the other hand, and your access to the games goes away.)

-- submitted from IRC

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